


I've Had the Highest Mountains, I've Had the Deepest Rivers

by Care



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-05
Updated: 2013-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-28 08:08:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Care/pseuds/Care
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fuck Thomas Tallis. Fuck. Him. University AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I've Had the Highest Mountains, I've Had the Deepest Rivers

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [collidingkiss](http://collidingkiss.tumblr.com/) for Smillan Santa 2012. Title from On Top of the World by Imagine Dragons.

Oh god, he’s going to die.

He’s going to die. He’s going to collapse right here, hidden in his library carrel, on top of his laptop and surrounded by piles of mildew-y books. No one will find him for weeks, because his carrel is tucked so far in the stacks, wedged in a cold little corner. His mum might worry when she doesn’t hear from him for a while, but it’ll still be a day or two before the campus police will come across his body. Maybe it’ll be another student, even, though that’s unlikely — Matt’s seen about two people pass by his carrel this entire term, and he’s been basically living here for weeks now. He has a tin of biscuits stored in one of the stacks that no one ever uses.

Between that and the practice room where he’s been sawing away at his cello nonstop, he’s spent probably about three weeks total in his actual flat.

Why did he want to do theory anyway? Music theory is rubbish. He should have focused on performance. He’d be finished by now, his end-of-term recital over and done with. He’d be free.

Bleakly, Matt rubs his face with his hands and turns back to the glare of his computer screen. He’s barely written a page of his essay, analyzing Thomas Tallis’s Spem in alium. His travel coffee mug is empty; he sucked it dry hours ago, when he was feverishly penning another paper.

His phone buzzes suddenly, the screen lighting up. Matt checks it. A text from Karen. Naturally. He grins, unlocks the screen.

 _fuck i just fell asleep for an hour,_ it says.

 _cheer up, you have 10 more hours before it’s due,_ he texts back, _that’s basically forever._

Karen’s response is instantaneous: _i have 9 more pages to write!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

_come take a coffee break with me._

_i can’t. i’m going to stab myself and bleed out on this sheet music._

He chuckles. She’s always had a tendency to run to hyperbole. _15 minutes. i’ll escort you back to your carrel myself._

_fine. i’ll meet you in the atrium._

 

*

 

“I don’t have 9 more pages of research to talk about,” Karen moans glumly once they’ve settled themselves with fresh coffees from the little library cafe.

Matt elbows someone else by accident as he tries to secure them a space against the wall to chat. The place is packed with bleary-eyed, unshowered people, sipping caffeine and looking just as hollow as he feels at the minute. He burns his tongue on a sip of coffee and swears under his breath.

“This is the worst day,” he says, mouth set in a grim line.

Karen flips her cloud of red hair over one shoulder and blows on her own cup. “How much of your Tallis paper have you written?”

“One bloody page.”

“Ouch,” she says, making a sympathetic face. “But you’re almost there at least. It’s only, what, 6 pages total?”

“Something like that.” He eyes her as she takes a tentative mouthful of coffee, her forehead furrowing. It’s completely unfair that anyone could still look as beautiful as she does, even having worn nothing but a University of Glasgow hoodie and grey tracksuit bottoms for the last four days.

She gives him a tiny smile. “Thanks for buying the coffees.”

“Well, I owe you for buying dinner last week.”

“Oh, right. Yeah, you owe me loads of money at this point, don’t you?”

It’s not _loads_. “It’s not loads! I’ve just — misplaced my wallet a few times.”

“It’s possible that by now you’re my indentured servant.” Karen brightens, looking like she’s warming to the idea. “That’d be quite lovely, actually. You could tidy my room for me. Oh! You can write my essay for me!” She waggles her eyebrows exaggeratedly, looking a bit manic.

Matt leans forward instead, brushing his thumb beneath her eyes, across the dark shadows there. He ignores the tiny spark from when his skin makes contact with hers. “How much have you been sleeping?”

“About as much as you.” She checks her watch and makes a small sound, like a miniature groan of despair, in the back of her throat. “Shit. I’ve got to get back to my carrel. Check in with me in half an hour, okay? Hopefully I’ll have a bit more done.”

“Right then. You want me to walk you back?”

“No, it’s fine. Just send me a text.”

He taps his coffee cup against hers, wishing her luck. She flashes him a brilliant smile over her shoulder as she runs off, and the thrill of it jolts up his spine like an extra shot of caffeine.

Matt walks back to his carrel, whistling one of the forty parts in Spem.

 

*

 

He’s basically had a crush on Karen from the moment they met. It’s at freshers’ week and they’re on a pub crawl, crowded into a dark little place on Ashton Lane with the other music students. The only other person Matt knows at that point is his new flatmate, Arthur, but he disappears into the mass almost as soon as they arrive, and is only later found in the little hallway leading to the toilets with his tongue down some dark-haired girl’s throat.

Not that Matt needs Arthur, but it’s not like he has other friends yet. Would’ve been nice for his mate to hang around for at least a little while.

But it turns out to be okay, better than okay even, because suddenly there’s a brilliant girl talking to him, words just spilling out of her mouth. She’s got mad ginger hair and freckles on her nose and she’s wearing this skirt that barely covers her thighs, god, she’s so achingly gorgeous that Matt can’t help staring. But he manages somehow when she makes a joke and his laugh takes him almost by surprise, how unexpectedly funny she is, and then she’s shaking his hand and telling him she’s Karen Gillan and he’s saying he’s Matt Smith, and that’s when he knows he’s already going to be madly in love with her.

He basically is, by the following week, when she comes over for a horror film marathon with his flatmates and he’s never met anyone who’s loved and been terrified of the films quite so much.

“Are you enjoying this?” he asks when she buries her face in his shoulder during a particularly gory zombie bit.

“Yes,” she says, lifting her head up. She laughs. “Of course.”

Of course it turns out that Karen’s got a boyfriend (“Patrick, he’s studying photography in Edinburgh, so I suppose we’re lucky that we’re only a train ride apart”), but that’s fine because, as Matt realizes a month later when Karen’s lying on his bed, critiquing his cello piece through a mouthful of soggy chips, she’s pretty much his best friend now. A flail-y, ridiculous, absurdly silly and amazing best friend.

It’s wonderful.

 

*

 

It’s a little past 3 AM when Matt reaches a writer’s block on the Tallis paper. More like a solid fucking wall, but, semantics. He digs his fingers into his scalp, giving his head a rough shake, and stares at the little clock in the corner of his computer screen. There’s nothing to be done. He flips through another book, stopping to look over his highlighted notes; the words are starting to blur together. He’s listened to the piece at least twelve times through by this point.

Fuck this, he thinks, and starts packing up his things. He’s going back to his flat and he’s going to take a shower. He’s going to make himself a cup of tea and melted cheese on toast and then he’s going to open the paper again.

 _going back to the flat,_ he sends to Karen.

_YOU’RE FINISHED???? I HATE YOU._

_not finished. just hungry. and i need a shower. come with me._

_no, but thanks. i don’t deserve my bed until i finish and i can hear its siren song from here._

_coooommmeeee tooooooo meeeeee kaaaaazzzzz_

_fuck off_

The shower is the best shower of his entire life. He stands for a good five minutes under the spray of hot water, basking in the warmth after the damp chill of the library. He so exhausted that he doesn’t realize until he’s drying off that he’s accidentally used Karen’s bodywash and Arthur’s shampoo. Matt sits down at the kitchen table with his melted cheese on toast next to him, and opens his laptop again.

The Word document glares menacingly at him.

He sighs, and starts typing.

 

*

 

They get the flat together after they finish their first year. It’s not much, just a little cramped place up four flights of stairs, a ten-minute walk from the music building and the university concert hall. It’s him, Karen, Arthur, and Arthur’s girlfriend Jane, who breaks up with him a month after the school year starts, and moves out and it’s all kinds of awkward. They have to scramble to find a fourth flatmate, and Karen brings her friend Reeve over one night in desperation.

But Reeve ends up being perfect, in the way things sometimes turn out to be perfect, and the flat is great. Just a little on the messy end of the spectrum, they cram the place with sheet music and guitars and records (and Reeve’s keyboard won’t fit in the living room with Arthur’s, so they have to put hers in the kitchen). That’s what happens with three instrumentalists, they say, and all tell Karen how lucky she is that she’s studying vocal performance and doesn’t have to lug things around.

It’s been the four of them for a year and a half at this point, hosting parties and dinners. Matt’s gotten used to falling asleep in Karen’s bed on late nights, listening to her practicing her scales absentmindedly as she puts clean laundry away. Or eating cereal at noon in the kitchen while Reeve’s composing, going back-and-forth between playing little riffs on her keyboard and irritably writing down notes in her incomprehensible chickenscratch. Or going to Arthur’s concerts with his student band, all the cafes that’ll have them in the West End.

The flat is home. School is home. They’re all home now, particularly Karen. Idiotic Karen who’ll go chase ducks with him in Kelvingrove Park on Saturday morning, and who’ll play Monopoly when they’re both completely plastered. She’ll watch movies with him all day, cuddled up in one of their respective beds, and she’ll make a mess of dinner with him. They’ll study on the living room floor, their books scattered around them. And it’s good, it’s safe, because she’s got Patrick, and Matt’s got girls of his own (including the very memorable on-again, off-again Daisy situation their second year). His and Karen’s friendship is the status quo.

Until this year, once they’ve come back to school, when she tells him she and Patrick split up.

 

*

 

Matt falls asleep at some horrible, godforsaken hour when the sun is starting to peek out above the trees. He lowers all his blinds and crawls into his unmade bed, kicking off sheets and curling himself up against the pillows. He’s got to get up in 3 hours, haul himself down to the music library, and print out his paper for class before he’s quite finished.

He’s also fairly positive that the last page is complete, indecipherable gibberish, but he’s past the point of caring. All he can think about is mince pies and holiday decorations and the smell of gingerbread in his house and his dad’s ridiculous caroling — he wants to see his family so badly.

He wakes up some indeterminate time later to find someone crawling into bed with him — Karen, he realizes. It’s not the first time they’ve shared a bed. The end of term tends to bring it out in them both. She fits herself against him, fully-dressed. He sleepily slides his arms around her waist, a familiar action. He kisses the side of her head, and gets her ear and a mouthful of questionably-clean hair.

“Done?” he asks, eyes closed, as he rests his forehead against her shoulder.

She makes some sort of bizarre sound, halfway between “no” and a grumble, and Matt makes the executive decision that sleep is probably the best course of action for both of them.

 

*

 

“Patrick and I are done,” she tells him the second day they get back. It’s a rare sunny day, and they’re sitting on a blanket in the Kelvingrove (not too close to the duck pond, where the homicidal waterfowl live). Around them are scattered the remnants of a picnic lunch — egg and cress sandwiches, empty bags of crisps, and bottles of water. Karen takes a bite of her apple while Matt watches the perfect line of her wrist, that pale strip of skin. “For good.”

“Are you okay?” he asks, unsure of what he’s feeling. It’s a strange combination of emotion — hurt that she didn’t tell him, concern about her, and a little bit relief, possibly mixed with a twinge of elation.

Karen shrugs, chews for a minute. “It was a few weeks ago. I think I’m fine now,” she says after swallowing.

He remembers the radio silence from her, starting the beginning of August. He was practically frantic at his internship in London; he must have phoned everyone they knew. The faint memory of nauseous worry claws at the back of his throat.

“It was a long time coming,” she continues. “We were fighting a lot last year.”

Yes, he remembers that too, interspersed between his own problems with Daisy. He probably didn’t pay as close attention as he should have: Karen, splashing water on her tear-splotched face at the bathroom sink when he goes in to get his toothbrush, the rise and fall of her agitated voice on the phone with Patrick that he can hear through their shared wall, the fact that he barely sees Patrick even though he used to, all the time.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve been there for you,” Matt says.

“It’s fine. You had your own stuff. Daisy stuff.”

“No, Kaz, that’s a shit reason. I still should’ve been there for you.” He reaches over and puts his arm around her shoulders, drawing her against him. She tucks her face into his chest. “I’m so sorry. I really am.”

She lets out a shuddering breath. “It’s fine. I mean, it sucks, but it’s fine.”

“It sucks, but it’s fine,” he repeats, catching a loose strand of her hair and twirling around his index finger, mulling. “Yeah, I agree.” The thought occurs to him then and he draws back. “He didn’t — ? It wasn’t — ?” His eyes search her face for a hint of — something.

Karen shakes her head. “No, _no,_ nothing like that. He didn’t do anything. We were just growing apart. We’d been together for four years, Matt. It was time to break up.”

“Okay. Yeah. You’re okay,” he says, like he’s trying to convince himself of it. “You’re fine.”

“Definitely fine.” She pokes him in the sternum. “And you can introduce me to a nice bloke. Someone really fit. Oh,” her eyes glow, “how about that guy, um, what’s-his-name…? The one in your Bach Counterpoint module?”

“Are you talking about Tom Chen?”

“Yeah, that’s him. Super fit.”

Matt makes a disgusted face. “Ugh, he’s awful, Kaz. Don’t go out with him. He’s so pretentious.”

“But so hot,” she giggles.

He pitches his apple core at her and she shrieks.

 

*

 

Karen’s still asleep when his alarm goes off, his phone buzzing violently from where he tossed it amidst dirty mugs on his nightstand. He manages to shut it off and lies back down, his brain slowly creaking into motion. Karen shifts, moves closer to him. Matt glances at her, her long lashes sweeping her cheeks, mascara smudged against skin. She hasn’t really been wearing makeup during the last few days. He gives her a quick kiss on the forehead and drags himself out of bed.

He finds some rumpled, but clean clothes, from the pile on his desk chair and changes quickly. He pulls on his jeans as he simultaneously emails his paper to himself.

“I thought you were done,” Reeve says when he opens his door. She’s holding a cup of coffee and it smells fucking divine.

Matt puts a finger to his lips, shushing her. “Karen’s asleep,” he mumbles. “I just have to run a paper down to my lecturer’s office.”

“You look bloody awful.”

“Thanks for the compliment.” He yawns. “Are you finished already?”

She nods, looking at peace with everything in the world and herself. “Yesterday.”

“Is there more coffee?”

“Yeah, in the kitchen.”

“God bless you.”

It takes him twenty minutes of finagling with the computers in the music library to get his essay printed. Matt stares down at the crisp white pages, stapled in the corner, with its crap title scrawled over the top, and hopes he at least manages to pass the module. Still, it’s too late now. He drops the paper off in a little box outside the lecturer’s door.

It occurs to him midway back to the flat that he’s finished for the semester. He nearly starts skipping. Mince pies! Presents! His cat!

Karen’s sitting cross-legged on his bed with her laptop when he opens the door, her fingers moving furiously over the keys. His cheeks are pink from the cold, his face beginning to thaw from being outside. He crawls over to her and lies down with his head pressed against her thigh.

“Go away,” she says, not looking at him. “I’m working. I’ve got 2 more pages and an hour before it has to be my lecturer’s inbox.”

“You’re in my bed. I want to sleep. I’ve earned it.”

She puts a hand on his head and shoves him. “Go sleep in my bed.”

“Really down to the wire, aren’t you?” Matt grumbles, but rolls himself off the bed. She doesn’t even respond; she must really be concentrating.

 

*

 

Tom Chen does turn out pretentious, Karen says. And Peter Hill is just plain rude. Arjun Patel can’t hold his own in conversation — seriously, it’s like talking to a stick, she complains.

“It’s such a shame. He’s so hot,” she adds.

Arjun is, Matt begrudgingly admits, pretty hot. He’s Reeve’s girlfriend’s friend, and he comes to the Halloween party they throw in their flat, looking perfectly like some sort of Adonis in his toga.

“I might shag him anyway,” Karen says casually, holding a paper cup of cheap champagne. “What do you think?”

Matt shrugs. The room is uncomfortably hot and his fringe is sticking to his forehead. Someone opens a window, and a sudden cool breeze whips through the flat. “Yeah, go for it. If it’s just going to be sex.”

She says, “Of course it’s just going to be sex,” which is kind of a weird thing to say. He almost asks her about it, but someone starts talking to her at that minute and he forgets about it.

Later, all the guests are gone, and Matt’s sweeping used cups into a bin bag. Arthur and Reeve are tidying up the living room, with knocked-over lamps and thank god no one was sick on the carpet this time. They’ve still got the music playing in the background though; it’s nice to have that on while they put things to rights. Karen comes out of the toilet, shaking water off her hands.

“I thought you were going with Arjun,” Matt says, surprised.

She grabs a handful of empty cups and tosses them into the open bag. “I decided to stay.” She sneaks this look at him, just raising her eyes, but it makes him blush all the same.

“Oh,” he says, feeling pleasantly warm.

 

*

 

“I’m done!” Karen crows, shoving her face into Matt’s.

He wakes with a start, arms tightening around the pillow he’s been clutching. There’s a little damp spot where he’s drooled. Must have been a good nap. Karen’s in clean clothes — well, pajamas — and her hair’s dripping wet. He smells her pomegranate shampoo, sweet and light. He sinks back down into her comfortable bed, with its mountains of pillows and soft blankets. There are a few plush toys tucked up in a corner. He watches her through half-lidded eyes, bathed in the muted gray afternoon light. Her giddiness makes her even more gorgeous, and it’s contagious. He’s happy just looking at her.

“Barely made it, you know,” she’s saying. “It was really eight and a half pages, but I had two pages of sources, so I think that’ll be okay. I’m just glad I’m finished at this point.”

“We’ve both survived,” he says.

She clambers into the bed next to him, sitting back on her knees. “Yeah, god, every semester we tell ourselves we’re not going to wait until last minute, and every semester we do. It’s awful.”

“Think of it as an extreme sport.”

Karen makes a face, but quickly smiles again. “When are you leaving for your parents’?”

“Friday. You?”

“Same. Can’t wait to see them. Have my mum cook for a change.”

“Oh, that’ll be nice. Something edible.”

“Shut up.” She swats him.

Matt takes hold of her wrist and tugs her down so they’re lying nose-to-nose. Each exhalation of her breath is a damp puff of air against his skin. He makes a contented humming sound. She laughs.

“Did you just purr?”

“…no. “

“Yes, you did. You purred.”

“Well, I’m happy. We’re both done. And you’re here. And your bed is so fucking comfortable. You might never get it back.”

She traces one of his cheekbones with a finger, her touch light but electric. “That might be okay.”

Her face is unreadable, but his heart starts kicking in a way that almost hurts in his chest. He lets her words hold in between them for minute, watching her eyes, but she keeps them downcast. All he can see is the faint twitch at the corner of her mouth, the way she’s scrunching up her nose a little, and the pink shell of her ear.

“Is this all the end of semester stress talking?” he asks, his voice faintly hoarse, trying to give her an out if she wants it. Because Matt can’t — he can’t quite bring himself to believe what she’s implying.

She shakes her head, which is hard to do when there’s only a few inches between them. “No. I’ve always — ” she cuts herself off. “We’ve been best friends for so long and I don’t think I just want to be friends anymore, I don’t think that’s all we are, Matt.”

“Karen,” he starts, suddenly desperate for her to know, “Karen, I love you — “

She cuts him off with her lips, the kiss soft and wet, and he’s dizzy with it. He holds her close and listens to her heartbeat, pounding like his, and maps the roof of her mouth with his tongue. Her moan is swallowed. Her fingers slip beneath his jumper and undershirt, resting against his waist, and then they slide up, her nails lightly scratching at his skin as she drags her hands up to his rib cage.

He chokes a little on her name; she bites his collarbone. Matt presses her into the mattress, their kissing messy and urgent, and he helps her out of her pajamas and she slides off her knickers and —

God, why doesn’t every term end like this? It would have been a far better motivation for him to finish his Tallis paper.

 

*

 

Queen Street Station is fucking insane, mobbed with students trying to get home, even at 7:30 in the morning. The queue at Costa Coffee snakes all the way around the cafe tables, towards the entrance of the building. He and Karen wait their turn at the ticket kiosk, watching the steady stream of people departing and exiting the trains. She’s got her fingers interlaced with his, and she gives his hand a little squeeze. Even though they’ve spent two entire days just with each other, Matt still doesn’t want to leave.

“Three weeks,” she says.

“Come visit me,” he says. “We can take the train to London for a day.”

“Alright,” she agrees.

“Well, that was easy.”

“Did you think I’d be hard to convince or something? Why wouldn’t I want to go London?”

He laughs. “I don’t know. Because you’re weird.”

“Watch it. I’m your girlfriend now.”

They buy their tickets and stand around with their bags beneath the ARRIVALS & DEPARTURES board. Matt gets them both cups of coffee and a muffin to share, because by Karen’s very accurate calculations, he owes her about 5 billion pounds. They giggle when an old man nearly impales a rather large lady with his umbrella by accident, and then at a group of bedraggled-looking American tourists, appearing quite confused about what they should be doing.

The Northampton train arrives first. Matt picks up his bag, and leans in for one last kiss.

“I love you,” Karen says against his mouth.

“I love you too,” he murmurs, his pulse stuttering.

“Go.” She gives him a little push. “You’ll miss it. Text me from the train.”

He waves; she waves back.

 

*

 

_oh no there’s a family with a squirmy baby._

_i hope they drug it for the train ride or you’re going to have a very unpleasant five hours._

_thanks gillan._

_i try._

_you’re just brimming with compassion._

_and i’m modest too. aren’t you lucky?_

_definitely._


End file.
